Things You Need to Study the Bible
What if you didn’t know and understand Hebrew, Greek or Latin? Could you still construct a correct and confident Bible study?
I do not teach my opinions.
I utilize the Word to explain the Word, here a little, there a little, line upon line, precept on precept.
Precept must be on precept or else we will have confusion.
If you would rather to watch the video of this Bible study, click this link.
Seven Tools and Resources we Need to Study the Bible
Today, I want to look at seven things that we need to construct a Bible study, and I’m going in-depth with this.
Also, stay with me to the end and I’ll definitely have a very good bonus for you.
And it’s one of those key things that we need to construct a Bible study. If this item is missing, we have problems constructing a “Bible-based” Bible study.
I Apologize
Also, I must say, too, I must apologize to my viewers.
Some of them have reached out to me and said that, even though in my introduction, I promised a bonus in some videos, but when they get to the end of the video, there is no bonus.
I sincerely apologize.
Sometimes I get too excited, I forget that I have a bonus that I mentioned in the beginning of the video to talk about in the end.
But today, definitely, I will have a bonus for you. Without further ado, let’s dive right into the content.
What Do You Do in a Bible Study?
I have seven tips that I would love to share with you. First, we need to understand what is the Bible. Then we need a mindset to search the Word of God. We need time, internet connection, a searchable online Bible, a topic and something to say about that topic.
Bible Study Tip 1:- Determine the Nature of the Bible
First, what is the Bible? The Bible is a nonesuch book. There is no other book like it.
When we understand what the Bible is, then we will comprehend how to treat it.
We will not treat it like it is a storybook, because the Bible is not a storybook and the contents are not stories.
They are real life events, things that happen to people in the past, and things that will happen to people in the future.
So the Bible is not a storybook. Essentially, the Bible is the narrative of the Lord God.
No Errors, No Contradictions!
He writes the Bible, and he tells it; he tells it from his perspective. But he uses humanity because he’s a Spirit.
Therefore, we should understand that there is no error in the Bible.
I’m not talking about printing errors, there could be printing errors. I’m talking about errors of substance, and there are no contradictions in the Bible.
Any time you find verses, which seem to contradict each other, then something is missing. There is another verse to support each of those verses.
Tip 2:- Search The Bible
Secondly, we need a mindset to search the Word of God, to search the Scripture. That is the second thing that we need.
Reading the Bible is very commendable but searching the scriptures is superior. Through reading, we can familiarize ourselves with the content of the Bible.
We can be inspired by the Lord and we’ll get to know the Bible to the extent where some people can quote scriptures.
How to Find the Truth?
Nothing is wrong with quoting scriptures. I’m not knocking that because I love to memorize scriptures and quote them when they are relevant.
But it’s only through searching the scriptures that we will find the gems that the Lord hides in his words. The Bible is like a huge puzzle you know.
It’s not like a novel that you go to and you read from beginning to end. Although we could do that but it will not benefit us much in terms of unlocking the truth of God’s word, for to find the truth, to locate the truth of the Word we must search the scriptures.
If we never search the scriptures, we will never find and unlock those secrets that the Lord has hidden in his words.
Searching the Scriptures is Superior!
So (Proverbs 2:1-5), is a good explanation for what I just said, searching the scripture for the hidden wisdom of God.
For this reason, Jesus also says, “Search the Scriptures for in them he think he have eternal life, and they are they, which testify of me. (John 5:39).
So, he was encouraging them to search the Scriptures, because in them, in the Scriptures, you have eternal life, and these same scriptures testify of me.
And this is true from Genesis, through to Revelation. That’s why I said that this is a narrative of the Lord God.
Now concerning this Bible study, don’t dismiss it. I would encourage you to adopt the attitude of the Bereans.
Search the scripture.
Why Should We Search the Bible?
After watching this Bible study, search the scriptures to see that what I am saying here in this study is actually in the Word of God. Don’t dismiss it.
Search the Scriptures to see if what I’m saying is what the word is saying. Search it for yourself.
In (Acts 17:11) “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so”, and that’s what I’m encouraging you to do, like the Bereans, search the Scripture, to decide and to see if the things I’m saying, are actually the things that the Bible explains.
Tip 3:- Set Aside Time
The third thing we need to do a Bible study is, time. Manually searching the Bible is time-consuming.
It’s slow and it’s laborious and it requires patience.
Many years ago, before the Internet, when I started to do Bible study, I would have a book of concordance, and I would search that book manually for a topic of interest and it would be pages on pages, and it would take days, weeks even, to finish the research on that one topic, to find the scriptures, which speak to my topic.
Today, with the use of the Internet and the World Wide Web, the time it takes to research a topic in the Bible is dramatically reduced because of improvement in technology.
Nevertheless, we still need to make a substantial investment in time, when we are doing Bible study.
We cannot rush into a Bible study and grab the first few verses that we find relating to our topic, then we’ll never really expose the truth of God’s word.
And we are in this to better ourselves and to better others, not just to do a Bible study, we need to impact people’s lives and impact our own lives.
Tip 4:- Secure An Internet Connection
The fourth thing that we need to do a Bible study in this contemporary time is an Internet connection.
Today, an internet connection is an essential resource to construct a Bible-based Bible study.
And I say “Bible-based” because the Bible should be the source of our Bible studies, and not commentaries and books and people’s opinions.
If we get the information for our Bible study from any other source, besides the Bible, then we are gleaning others’ opinions or we are using either our opinions or the opinions of others.
But we don’t need people’s opinions. We need the Word. Thus, an Internet connection enables us to search the Bible or to make searches of the Bible very quickly.
Now, we can search the Bible very quickly for our topic, and done with research of the Scripture in a much shorter time, than before.
Tip 5:- Searchable Online Bible
The fifth thing we need for a Bible study is a searchable online Bible. Now armed with an Internet connection we need a searchable Bible.
I love to use Biblegateway.com. But there are many searchable Bibles out there that you can utilize.
If you just type your topic into the search bar of Biblegateway.com and press the enter key, within a few seconds it provides a list of Bible references for your topic.
This is similar to the manual concordance pages I had to go through to uncover my topic.
But now, we just type it in, hit enter, bam, we have a list of resources, a list of topics concerning our, references concerning our topics that we can scrutinize to see which one is relevant, most relevant to our topic.
So the time it takes to research a topic now, has speeded up because of the Internet and the World Wide Web.
Tip 6:- We Need a Topic
The sixth thing we need is a topic. We need a topic to teach any Bible study.
Tip 7:- What To Teach?
So having a topic then the seventh thing we need for a Bible study is something to say about our topic.
Now, that we have all these references from the Bible concerning our topic, what are we going to do about it?
What are we going to say about it? We must have something to say about the topic for us to teach a Bible study.
What are we going to teach?
Tip 8:- Bonus
Now, earlier on, I promised a bonus and now I am at that point. Any person who is literate could construct a Bible study.
But it takes a Christian to compose and execute a Bible-based Bible study. And again, I’m saying Bible-based, because we’re excluding people’s opinions, my opinions and others.
We don’t want commentaries and we don’t want books. We don’t want ideas from others.
We want to uncover what the Word is saying about the Word; what the Bible is saying about the Bible.
However, we need to allow the scripture to explicate itself and the scripture does.
Consequently, if we’re allowing the Bible to teach us, we would all be teaching the same thing concerning any topic, but we are not.
Tip – No Shortage Of Opinions
Even on YouTube, if you look on this topic of Bible study, probably all or most of the teachers are saying different things concerning Bible study.
Because, granted you know, how you do your Bible study is sort of personal, you add your own flair to it.
But actually, extricating the Word of God from the many pages should be similar.
There are certain similarities that we all should go through if we’re using the Bible and hence we will end up with the same end product.
We’ll all be teaching the same thing, but because we are using opinions from here, opinions from there, and our opinions, we end up with diverse opinions on one topic, but we are using the same source.
Why? Because we are not allowing the Word to explain itself. So what is missing? Why is this happening?
Who Are Bible Study Teachers?
Who in the Bible, taught the scriptures? When we read the scriptures, who teach Bible studies in the Scriptures?
If we can find out who does that, then we will realize one of the reasons this is happening.
What are some of the features of people who teach the scriptures? That is something else we need to explore.
What are some of the things they possess? What characteristics they display?
We can look at some of the Apostles and teachers in the Bible to get our results.
Compare Spiritual Things With Spiritual
Now all had the ability to compare spiritual things with spiritual things. That is important.
All the teachers in the Bible possessed this ability, where they were able to compare spiritual things with other spiritual things.
If we’re unable to do this, we are deficient in teaching the Word of God, definitely.
But we only have this ability, both they and us only have this ability, when we adhere to the teaching of Jesus Christ.
Yes, when we follow the teaching of Jesus Christ, we have this ability to discern spiritual things and compare spiritual things, and teach it.
And you will also find out that all these people who taught the word, they were filled with the Holy Ghost, or they had the Holy Spirit come upon them, which is essentially the same thing in principle.
If we’re not filled with the Holy Ghost, we cannot hear from God and we are unable to align spiritual things with other spiritual things.
What is The Holy Ghost Saying?
In other words, we cannot tell when the Holy Ghost is speaking, or what the Holy Ghost is trying to communicate to us, because there is no connection between us and the Holy Ghost.
This is why Jesus says, except a man be born again, “he cannot see the Kingdom of God” (John 3:3).
This means if we are not born again, we cannot see, perceive, or understand the Kingdom of God.
And if we cannot understand the Kingdom of God, then it’s because we cannot decipher the spiritual content of his Word.
So we will hear born again but we wouldn’t comprehend what it means because we cannot spiritually discern it.
This is a major problem. I’m telling you, it’s a major problem. And not because we declare that we are Christians, we are Christians.
No! It’s not because we say we are Christians or we go to church. There are many people today who are going to church and there are many pastors who are teaching the word and they don’t qualify as Christians because they have not adhered to the teaching of Jesus Christ.
They have disobeyed Jesus’s teaching. They have put it aside, they have adopted their own thing, they’re doing whatever they want, and Jesus is going to say, depart from me, I know you not.
Conclusion
What Do I Need for a Bible Study?
I’m at my conclusion. Let’s recap. Anyone could compose a Bible study quickly, if such a one understands the nature of the Bible. If such a one has a mindset to search the scripture, make a considerable investment in time, has an internet connection, use a searchable Bible website, choose a topic to research, and has something to say.
Finally though, one of the most important requirements for any Bible study is your teacher’s ability to understand spiritual things.
Must-Have For Any Bible Study
We don’t need to know or understand Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, because the Bible interpret itself.
Can you imagine, if you never went to Greek school, our Hebrew school or Latin School, you wouldn’t understand the Bible or teach the Bible?
No, the Lord is not like that. You see, people are so focused on the natural aspect of the Word that they are forgetting the spiritual and most important part of it.
And none of the disciples knew Greek, Latin, or Hebrew, except for a few, probably one or two.
Additionally, whatever language you speak today, there is a version of the Bible in your language.
So you don’t need to know any other language but your language, to study the Bible and to teach the Bible.
Whatever language you speak, there is a version of the Bible in your language.
So you don’t need another language it’s all there.
However, before we can utilize this unique feature of the Bible, we must be born again according to Jesus’s instructions, then and only then will we possess the ability to align spiritual matters with spiritual matters.
How This Event Impacts Bible Study?
So let’s go to (1 Corinthians 2:13). And I always use the King James Version of the Bible.
It’s the only version I use, it’s the only version I need. I’m going to read from (1 Corinthians 2:13-16).
Which things also we speak, and this is Paul talking to Christians. He is speaking to the born again, Corinthian Church, he is not talking to unsaved people.
So this is the leader speaking to the congregation, the church, “which things also we speak”, so we here don’t mean everybody, “not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
So in order to compare spiritual things with spiritual things, the Holy Ghost must teach us and do the comparison.
And for that to happen, we must receive Him and possess Him. And if you don’t know a day and a time when you got that Holy Ghost, then you have never gotten him.
Who Compares Spiritual Things With Spiritual?
I’m not mincing words here. I’m telling you, if you don’t know the day, the time, the hour, the minute, the second that you received the Holy Ghost, you never got him.
You need to know the time. You can never get a gift from God and don’t know when you got that gift.
It is such a nonesuch experience that you cannot forget it. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before.
How could you forget the time you got the Holy Ghost? You cannot!
But the natural man received not the things of the Spirit of God”. That’s what I’m saying.
If you have never received the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, you cannot receive the spiritual things that the Holy Ghost is saying.
“For they are foolishness then unto him, neither can he know them”, can never know them, who is going to communicate it to them? Not the Spirit, “because he has not the spirit because they are spiritually discerned“.
What’s the Best Way to Study the Bible?
Now, verse 15, “but he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man“.
Final verse, “for who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ.”
Anytime we receive the Holy Ghost we receive the mind of Christ. Therefore, the Lord can communicate to us, we can know his mind and he ours.
So in closing, teaching Bible studies is not a light matter. It has eternal implications because it impacts us now and later, that is, in eternity. Therefore, I want you to search the Scriptures and share in the comments below this video, who qualifies to teach you Bible studies?
Thank you for stopping by, and the blessings of the Lord be on you.
